Last week at a public hearing over the proposed Columbia River Crossing freeway expansion, Oregon League of Conservation Voters executive director Doug Moore sat down in the capitol building in Salem to testify against the bloated mega-project. After refusing to oppose the CRC during the 2013 legislative session, and after refusing to even sign on to a letter of opposition last fall for a renewed ‘Oregon-only’ push by state Democrats, OLCV was finally ready to come out swinging against the costly, ecologically disastrous boondoggle.

Moore thanked the hearing committee, mentioned how his group “holds legislative leaders accountable”, then spoke about how OLCV views CRC-supporting Dems as allies. He barely got out the words ‘opposed to this project‘ before concluding his testimony. In total, Doug Moore spoke for about 35 seconds.

As the state chapter of the national League of Conservation Voters, OLCV is among the most powerful and influential environmental groups in Oregon. Their endorsements and legislative scorecard rankings are coveted by politicians, and often set the overall tone for smaller enviro-groups. In a state that prides ecology, voters pay attention to what OLCV has to say. As an organization that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual donations, OLCV is as well funded as they are politically well-connected.

For those unfamiliar, or for those who believed this train-wreck had finally ended, it’s worth reviewing a few more of the facts. The CRC can not honestly be called a ‘bridge’. It is a 10-12 lane, 5 mile long freeway expansion and light rail extension over the Columbia River from Portland to Vancouver, WA. While doing nothing to reduce vehicle trips times or congestion, the CRC’s design and tolling appears entirely dependent on actually encouraging more trips to be taken by automobile, in total disregard for the climate crisis we now face.

Okay, I’m gonna try to keep this one short. After dancing on the grave of the CRC this summer, I’ve largely refrained from dragging myself through the nauseating task of tapping fingers to keyboard yet again over this $4 to $10 billion dollar mistake that just keeps on mistaking. Here we go.

To be clear, this is still a Dead Freeway. Oregon governor Kitzhaber declared such this summer, and despite his and other state Democrat’s best delusional efforts, the freeway mega-expansion has not been reanimated. The bonds approved in HB 2800 expired on September 30th, as mandated by several trigger requirements that were never met. There have, however, been some recent revelations worth noting. I’ll attempt to be brief.

Clackamas Country commissioners are demanding to see traffic diversion data generated by CRC contractor CDM Smith that, according to economist Joe Cortright, proves that new tolls on the CRC will divert so much traffic from the I-5 to the 205 that (A) the CRC will never pay for itself, and (B) so much more traffic will enter Clackamas and East Portland that citizens there will cough up a polluted lung while driving around searching for a space to park in their own hometown.

Pedalpalooza is over in Portland for the year. All the corking and fire and mayhem and drinking camaraderie was as enjoyable as ever. It’s always a bit disheartening when Pedalpalooza ends, largely because you don’t want the fun to stop. The other downside is returning to the drudgery of common life and the realizations that the globe is still warming, we’re still at war with, like, five different nations, wildfires are killing people, the list goes on. In reviewing recent local and national events, however, there are several cycling stories worth sharing that ought to mitigate your post-Pedalpalooza blues.

The first is that the Columbia River Crossing freeway mega-expansion is *drumroll*….FINALLY DEAD!! The $4.2 billion dollar lumbering zombie-in-a-coma nightmare came at long last to a sudden and deserving death on the second to last day of June, 2013 after the Washington state senate refused to waste any more money on the thing. My complete take on hearing this news was published on Mismanaging Perception.

It’s been thoroughly satisfying to read the sore-loser ramblings of CRC backers who just can’t seem to understand what went wrong. It should be perfectly obvious to anyone paying attention that everything went wrong with this project. Economist and bike commuter Joe Cortrightsummed it up well, “The CRC was the last gasp of the highway-building dinosaur. They had this world view that car traffic was going to increase every single year without limit.” It’s worth remembering that this utter mistake of a project was pushed full force by Oregon Democrats like state rep. Jules Bailey, whom the OLCV absurdly claim as one of their “environmental champions“.